


Brighter Days

by Kaoupa



Series: Steven Multiverse [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Utopia, Everyone's more or less happy, Explorer AU, Not quite perfect but pretty damn good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22106059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoupa/pseuds/Kaoupa
Summary: White Diamond has a problem. With herself, so to say.
Relationships: Pink Diamond & White Diamond's Pearl (Steven Universe), Pink Diamond/Greg Universe, White Diamond & Blue Diamond (Steven Universe), White Diamond & Yellow Diamond (Steven Universe)
Series: Steven Multiverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912954
Comments: 9
Kudos: 42
Collections: Steven Universe Explorer AU





	Brighter Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowjonathan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowjonathan/gifts).



> All credit for this AU goes to ShadowJonathan, who came up with the idea for this (The "Explorer AU" on Discord). I just wrote a story set in said universe.
> 
> I don't own Steven Universe.

“My… White, are you okay?”

Slowly, White Diamond felt herself returning to consciousness. For a second, she wondered why she was bothering, the waste of carbon and life that she -

No. That wasn’t her. 

“No. I’m not.”

The knowledge didn’t make her feel any better.

  
  
  


“White, look. I just… we’ve all been talking.”

“And?” White Diamond didn’t bother hiding the slight tinge of annoyance in her tone.

She winced as she realized who that sounded like, flushing slightly green. It sounded like _her_ , specifically.

The Goshenite who had been one of her directors for millenia, and who had been working alongside her earlier that day, recognized that. “White, you need some time off. We can keep working on the project by ourselves for a while.”

“This is the biggest development we’ve had in - since we discovered Earth!” White Diamond snapped as she turned red, turning around to the smaller gem - not much smaller, though.

“Yes. And we will keep working on it. But White, we all saw that, and... “ Goshenite fell silent. Words seemed to have failed her. “We all saw it. And if _I_ was horrified… I can’t even imagine how you feel.”

White was quiet again. 

“How long has it been since you took a vacation anyways? And besides, White, you do remember that talk about… I think it was how time passes faster for people when they’re younger?”

The hidden message was clear, even to White Diamond. Her face turned pink in tune with her mortification.

“I will be back in two months.” She said after several seconds. “I expect substantial progress to have been made.”

“We’ll do our best. And if nothing else… we can find a better target to observe, by that time.”

“Good.” White Diamond nodded in approval, her face finally returning to its normal white color. “I will see you later, then.”

  
  
  


As she walked towards the building that held her fellow Diamond, White Diamond pulled up a screen, already dialing in the combination she had long since memorized (and waving one hand at the Rubies who were waving furiously in her direction). 

The Pearl who appeared onscreen was one she’d long since remembered the appearance of. “Appointments with Yellow Diamond are strictly-”

“Pearl, it’s me. I need to see Yellow.”

The yellow Pearl, to her credit, was only surprised for a few seconds before regaining her composure. “I was under the impression that you were going to be busy with your new invention for the next few months.”

“Plans change.” White Diamond said flatly.

“I’ll ask her if she’s available, then.” Yellow Pearl nodded. “The computer science division has been working overtime after your division’s latest creation.”

“I don’t care. I…” White felt her cheeks burning blue with shame. “I need to see her.”

Yellow Pearl didn’t know White Diamond as well as her Diamond did, but she had spent time with her over the ages. And she had almost never seen her like this before. Her voice softened. “I’ll tell her it’s urgent, then.” The screen turned off, without White’s input.

She sighed in relief.

  
  
  


“Is something wrong?”

“White Diamond is outside. She seems rather intent on seeing you. I wasn’t told why, but she seems to have left her division.”

“But she has been focused so heavily on her latest invention. It’s all she has been discussing for the last few years, almost.”

“Beside Pink’s latest discovery.”

“Yes. Well, I suppose I can take a break.”

“I’ll deal with this for you, then. I spent the last two hours with Blue.”

“Thank you, my Pearl.”

  
  
  


“White, it’s-” Yellow Diamond was cut off midsentence, by White Diamond throwing her arms around her. The older Diamond’s face was doing a strange trade-off of color - one second, it was burning blue with shame. The next, purple with love.

Not sure what could have caused that particular set of emotions to rise, Yellow Diamond returned the embrace. She felt a little better already. “It’s good to see you too.”

“I love you.”

Yellow Diamond blinked. 

White had never been good with emotions, even before taking into account how whenever she felt them strongly enough they tended to show up on her face in rather intense hues. So she’d always felt that her actions should prove what she thought of people, not her words.

And while Yellow had always treasured the moments of White saying her feelings instead of just acting on them, she always knew when they were most likely to happen, and out of nowhere like this… 

Something must have happened.

But that was for later.

For now, she simply embraced White back.

  
  
  


“Yellow! White!” Blue Diamond looked very surprised as the other two Diamonds walked into the room, before grinning. “I wasn’t -”

Like Yellow before her, Blue was cut off mid-sentence as White Diamond grabbed her and pulled her into an embrace.

“I love you.”

Blinking, Blue Diamond looked surprised for a few seconds, before she smiled and hugged White back. “I love you too, White.”

Yellow watched from the sidelines, feeling her soul lighten itself a little.

  
  
  


As the Galaxy Warp sent them on their trip, the three Diamonds waited in silence. White because she was already talking to herself mentally. Blue and Yellow because of their still-lingering surprise at seeing her take so much time off completely unplanned.

Then, the Warp Pad chimed. 

They had arrived, startling the lone Rose Quartz who was on guard duty at the Warp Station to no end.

“W - Diamonds!” She stammered, looking very surprised and closing the screen that she’d had active as the three matriarchs walked down from the Galaxy Warp. “This was - completely unanticipated. What is the reason for your being here?”

“We’re here to see Pink. Could you guide us to her, please?” Blue Diamond asked kindly, smiling at the smaller Quartz.

Recovering from her surprise, she nodded. “She’s in her residence, the last that I knew. I’ll bring you there at once.”

  
  
  


“Pink?” Yellow made an active effort to bring her voice down as she knocked on the door to the residence. It had a fairly lovely view, if you were the sort of person who liked the views of forests and beaches at the same time. Not that many places on Earth had access to multiple biomes of life, and Pink Diamond had set up her main base on Earth - as well as her private residence - inside a forest on one of the world’s main landmasses, near a lake that was connected to the ocean if you went downstream a few hundred miles.

Biological research was usually best carried out near the subjects of study. Which was partly why it was also within a mile of a human settlement. Humans were classified as diurnal with their understanding of organic life - that was, they tended to sleep at night. And they got very crabby when their sleep was interrupted (not an uncommon response among gems that spent their time sleeping, too).

There was still no reply at the door.

“Pink, are you there?” Not for the first time, Yellow Diamond mentally cursed the stubbornness of humans. Why did so many of them not trust the technological DNA scanner they’d developed as a front door? Instead of these old locks and keys? She and Pink had put so much work into them…

“She could be sleeping.” Blue said simply, frowning down at the locked door. “And I know that she’s had a security system installed after that last trespasser.”

“Let’s come back in the morning, then.” Yellow Diamond sighed, looking around. “What is there to do around here?”

  
  


Six hours later, White Diamond, Blue Diamond, and Yellow Diamond were back at their “sister’s” front door. Yellow and White were both trying the “ice cream” that they’d purchased in a nearby convenience store. Well, they had been. White had unceremoniously handed hers off to Yellow several hours ago. The other Diamond seemed to be determined to savor every last bite. Extensively.

“Pink?” Blue Diamond tried knocking on the door again, still wondering why the gem in question had decided against making her door one that she didn’t have to be there to open. Humans couldn’t be that paranoid…

“Uh… you guys?” The semi-familiar voice from behind them caught the three Diamonds off guard, making them blink and turn around.

“Ah, hello Greg.” Blue Diamond gave the half-retired musician a smile “How-”

“Shhhh.” He said quickly, using his head to gesture towards the vehicle that had brought him there. “We just got back, he’s sleeping.”

The three Diamonds nodded quickly.

And as they did, the next two members of their number walked down the front path. Well, one of them did. The other one was still sleeping in his carrier.

Still, none of them would ever forget the way Pink Diamond’s eyes lit up when she saw her sisters. “HI!” She whispered energetically, waving with her free hand.

“Hello, Pink. Could you open the door, please?” Blue Diamond asked quietly, gesturing to the still-immobile front door. Not for the first time, she mentally cursed the locking system that Greg had convinced Pink to have installed.

Pink just raised an eyebrow, and lifted up her occupied hand.

In the baby carrier, Steven snoozed peacefully, tossing and turning.

“I’ll get it.” A white Pearl said, walking carefully down the path next to her, keys already in hand.

  
  
  


Twenty minutes later - after Steven had abruptly woken up, and been taken off by a pink Pearl and a Spinel to be babied and calmed down from his abrupt wailing fit, the other four Diamonds were all sitting down in the living room, with Greg having left to let them have a “family discussion.”

“I love you. All of you.”

And White repeating what she had already told Blue and Yellow to Pink as well.

The fact that she was staring at the floor, her face tinted purple and green, told everyone in the room that something was very, very, wrong.

“White? What’s the problem?” Pink Diamond had already gotten up from where she’d been sitting, and gone to sit by her “mother”, as she’d started calling White.

“We ran our first active use of the Dimensional Viewer today.” White Diamond replied. “And… what I saw, what we saw-”

Words failed her, and her entire body turned green. If she had been human or any type of organic, she was certain that she would have puked out the contents of her stomach long ago, and not stopped until she physically couldn’t puke her disgust out any more. 

Her family - twisted. Her world, her _Home,_ what _had she DONE to it, to her PEOPLE-_

“WHITE!” Three voices yelled in unison. 

Before she realized what was happening, three sets of arms had wrapped themselves around her, around the disgusting-

“White, what happened?” Pink’s voice was filled with concern as she looked White in the eyes. Her Diamond pupils, that in another world she’d rightfully _thrown away in disgust at all the Diamonds stood for-_

“White… what did you see?” Yellow Diamond’s voice was strangely gentle.

Beside the other two Diamonds, Blue Diamond’s aura spilled out from her, her long-developed control of it making it stop a few feet away from them and filling the others with her feelings.

Love. And concern.

White smiled as she felt her eyes fill with tears.

They _weren’t_ them.

 _She_ wasn’t _her._

And the story of what she had watched came spilling out, with images projecting from her gemstone to go along with the scenes.

All the while, an image overlaid itself in the back of her mind.

The youngest Diamond - her… grandson? Yes, that was the word… clasped in _her_ massive hands.

  
  
  


Ten minutes later, everything had come out, and White Diamond sat down hard on the couch. Across from her, Yellow Diamond, Blue Diamond, and Pink Diamond were all staring in horror at the place where she’d been projecting everything she had seen. Blue’s fingers had dug into the armrest of the chair she’d been sitting in, and her aura was crackling around her form, uncontrolled like it hadn’t been in thousands of years since they had mastered their powers.

“...Excuse me a minute.” Yellow looked oddly calm. Without waiting for a reply, she got up and power walked away, towards the “exercise center” Pink had installed for Greg. 

Ten seconds later, the noise of screeching steel made its way through the house, and the familiar crackle of lightning leaping out to engulf everything around it.

Pink looked too horrified to speak for more than a minute. But eventually, she found her voice again. “White… that wasn’t you.”

“I know. That… she wasn’t me.” White Diamond looked exhausted. “But… she could have been me, and-”

“White.” None of the other Diamonds startled as Yellow Diamond walked back into the room. “I… you know you can’t hold yourself responsible. Maybe you were horrific there, but…” She hesitated. “Were any of us any better? We… did me or Blue rise up to stop you once, before Steven tried to change things?”

Blue Diamond sighed. “We… we could have been them, yes. But we are not them. We chose to be ourselves, and so did you. And they could have chosen to be like us long ago.” She snorted. “And besides Steven and Pink, none of them bothered to even give such an idea a second thought.”

Pink Diamond was quiet. For several seconds, she gathered her thoughts. “White… I know you could have been her. But you’re not.” This time, Pink Diamond initiated the embrace. “And even if you think you’re like her I’m gonna love you anyways.”

Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond joined in a second time. 

  
  
  


They opened their eyes.

Why was everything so… small?

“THE LIVING ROOM!?”

A thought came through the not-yet-named fusion’s mind.

_Oh dear._

  
  
  


Ten seconds later, Blue Diamond and White Diamond were apologizing profusely to Gregory Demayo-Universe and Pink Diamond, with Yellow Diamond already sending a message to Yellow Pearl to see how soon a repair crew could be sent.

“WAAAAHHH!!”

“My Diamond, my Greg, please help us!” Pink Pearl yelped, almost running out from the hallway with the screaming Steven in her arms. 

“Come on, come on, look at the silly Spinel…” The long-limbed gem was trying to make faces before the crying hybrid baby. It wasn’t helping.

“Shh… shh…” Pink Diamond and Greg quickly walked over, with the pink gem picking Steven up from her friend. “Thank you, my Pearl.” The pink gem flushed at her old friend’s words. Her smile was hastily overridden, however, as Steven kept wailing.

“Pink…” Then, to the surprise of the mother in question, another gem walked up. White Diamond didn’t hold out her arms. She looked rather nervous. “May I?”

There was no need to say anything further. Pink just smiled, and turned towards her with Steven still wailing in her arms. “Don’t drop him, okay?”

White just nodded, as the tiny child was placed securely into her arms. And to her surprise, he started to stop crying as he was placed there. Curiosity overtook the tiny face, as he looked up at this person he didn’t quite remember.

White Diamond wasn’t sure how to handle human infants, and she would admit that if you asked her.

But unconsciously or otherwise, as Steven shifted in her arms, she made sure to keep her hands away from him. She wasn’t her. She knew that. But the chance that she could be was there. And she’d be a fool to not see the similarities. 

And she would sooner throw herself into a sun than ever risk becoming like that.

**Author's Note:**

> Very pleased with how this went! And yeah, I really don't like the canon White Diamond too much.


End file.
